The WADA report, which covers a six-month period from last November following the suspension of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency, also said some Russian athletes did not complete events or withdrew from start lists to elude doping control officers.
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The athlete, who is not named, eventually provided a urine sample that tested positive for a banned substance, WADA added in a 23-page report providing an update on an emergency drug-testing campaign focused on Russia’s troubled Olympic teams.
The information in the report, collated in partnership with UK Anti-Doping (UKAD), includes testing statistics, details on Adverse Analytical Findings (AAF) and restricted access, with claims of athlete evasion and tampering with sample collection procedures.
When samples were sent overseas for testing, laboratories said the packages had been tampered with by Russian customs officers, WADA said.
“When she tried to use the container it leaked onto the floor and not into the collection vessel”, the report read. In one case an athlete ran away from testers at a competition, and another “exited the stadium” during her own race, WADA said.
And the report contained anecdotal evidence of athletes flouting the tests.
Other passages of the report highlighted the darkly comical lengths drug cheats would go to in an effort to avoid detection.
Critics say Wada is racked by conflicts of interest in its ruling body, which is made up of Olympic and government officials who are more concerned with keeping up a false front of integrity instead of policing sports.
Russian swimming has been hit with a series of doping scandals while Russian athletics is striving to overturn a ban by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) for alleged state-sponsored doping.
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Other sources close to the situation have told Reuters they think Bach’s comments have given the IAAF a clear run to maintain the ban, and the integrity of athletics amid widespread doping problems in other sports, safe in the knowledge that the International Olympic Committee will effectively overturn it for the Olympics. Very far, according to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). The governing body for global track and field is scheduled to decide on 17 June whether to bar Russia’s team from this summer’s Olympics.
